


don't wanna fight the tide

by master_obi_wan_kenboneme



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25905700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/master_obi_wan_kenboneme/pseuds/master_obi_wan_kenboneme
Summary: Obi-Wan thought that the stories his mother told them were only to lull him to sleep. Not warn him of a bloody, flower-filled future.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 10
Kudos: 111





	1. The Realization

**Author's Note:**

> a HUGE thank you to my wonderful betas, [scnofstark](https://tumblr.com/scnofstark) and [gay cheerios](https://tumblr.com/gay-cheerios)

It was not long after the attempt on the Chancellor’s life that Obi-Wan first found them. Something had been gently tickling the back of his throat since he woke up, and he eventually stole into a refresher on The Negotiator to gently pull it from his throat. ‘How odd,’ he thought. ‘I’ve not been near blooming flowers for the duration of this mission.’ He let the pale yellow petal flutter into a trash bin near the sink, but something stopped his return to his duties. Truly, it wasn’t his intention to retrieve the petal from the trash bin again, but the force seemed to whisper the command in his ear, silky and slithering through his conscious. Obi-Wan stuffed the quickly-wilting petal into a pocket in his robes and went on his way.

The second time the Jedi Master found the petals, he had just woken up. A few (four, to be exact) rested in his mouth while several others (nine) lay near his head on the pillow. Two of the soft petals had tiny speckles of blood marring their otherwise smooth and uniform surface. Furrowing his brows, he spat out the bits on his tongue and gathered all thirteen in his hands. The petals were each about the length of his little finger and half the width. They were yellow, with the exception of a little blood, and like nothing he’d ever seen despite numerous hours spent in the temple gardens. Obi-Wan deposited the petals on a table near his bedroll and settled back down in attempts to fall back into the waiting arms of sleep.

In a dream, oddly enough, was the next time Obi-Wan encountered the flower petals. However, they weren’t falling from his lips. The Jedi took in his surroundings: a room filled with flowers, a daybed, and a shelf full of flimsi books and other knickknacks. When he swiveled his head again, he found a woman cradling a small child in her lap, holding a flimsi book in front of them that looked nearly ready to fall apart. Her words were muffled, and Obi-Wan had to strain to hear her clearly over the babbling of the child.

“Would you like to hear a story, dear one?”

Obi-Wan froze. He didn’t remember much about his life before being taken into the creche, but there was no mistaking that voice. That was his mother, undoubtedly. And, he supposed, the baby in her lap, was him. The child squealed and squirmed in his mother’s arms.

“Very well then, Obi. Once, a very long time ago, a woman fell deeply in love with her father’s groundskeeper. She was so infatuated with him that she would trample through the gardens under the window, blaming it on wild critters, just so that she would be able to see him. However, she fell into the flowers one day and breathed in so many of them that they began to take root and grow in her lungs. You remember what those are, right?”

Young Obi-Wan nods and turns around in her lap and points at her chest and took a comically deep inhale.

“Very good! Now when the girl finally arose from the flower bed, she was coughing flowers into her handkerchief. It continued to get worse day by day until the groundskeeper came again. He had heard about her condition and decided that he wanted to do something nice. The girl was laying on her bed when the boy came into her room. He said: ‘My lady, I am not a rich man and I can afford to give you nothing but this,’ and he gave her the most beautiful flower she had ever seen. Suddenly, the girl began coughing and coughing and coughing, until there were no more flowers in her chest. Some say it was a coincidence, but I say that it was because of the boy’s act of true love. People still get the flowers in their lungs today, but they call it The Dying Bloom.”

“Ma? Why call it that?”

“Now that, my darling, is a story for another day,” she said, smiling sadly at her child.

Obi-Wan jerked awake from the dream, petals forcing their way out of his throat and tears forcing their way out of his eyes. ‘Of course,’ he thought. ‘The Dying Bloom.’ He falls back onto his bedroll, running a hand over his face. He hadn’t dreamt about his parents since Qui-Gon’s death, and even then it was only snippets of memories, not whatever this was. The fresher. That’s what he needed, the fresher. Forcing himself up was the easiest part of the ordeal because as soon as he rose to his feet, he had another fit. Shivers wracked his body as his lungs forced flower petals from their depths, coughs echoing throughout the room. He made his way to the fresher, blood falling from his mouth and onto his nightshirt. The ceramic of the sink was cold against his hands, colder against his face when he fell to his knees, sobbing. His frame shook as the last of tonight’s flowers expelled themselves from his body, gliding to the floor, weighed down by blood. Obi-Wan could hear his alarm blaring from the other room as he weakly pulled himself from the ground. He washed the blood from his chin and lips before peeling off his nightshirt, soaked through with sweat. The man sagged against the doorframe in his attempt to reach his room, longing for a stim, or at least a mug of caf.

And so that is how it went. A few nights each week, Obi-Wan would wake up, hacking up pale yellow flower petals and blood. He went to the archives once but found nothing except a few stories of alien infections that were cleared by antibiotics.

It was his intention to keep his condition a secret from everyone around him until it cleared. That was, however, impossible when he collapsed on the battlefield in front of Cody. 

“It’s just exhaustion, Commander,” he had claimed when he woke up again.

“With all due respect, General, that’s bantha kark,” Cody had replied.

What Obi-Wan failed to realize was that when Cody came back to check on him, the clone had seen flower petals on the ground. With blood on them.

‘What in sith hells?’ he thought to himself. ‘No flowers here for us to pick up, where did the General get these?’

Before he could voice his concerns, he was ushered out of the tent by Obi-Wan, an obviously forced smile on his face and blood staining his teeth.

“General! General, I have to ask if you’re alright, there’s blood—” He was cut off by Obi-Wan.

“I’m quite alright, Cody. Nothing to be worried about.” He closed his lips and his face morphed into a grimace as he shoved the Commander out of his tent. 

Cody was left stunned, mouth still open and eyebrows still knit together. He needed to find Rex. Rex would know something.


	2. The Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hooo boy this is a lot longer than the last chapter.

Rex, as it turned out, knew nothing more than Cody did. He thought his brother might have been in an odd trance or a dream, but after observing the redheaded General for a few days he had to believe Cody. Obi-Wan’s coughing fits, while rare, could wake the occupants of the tents surrounding his or drive him out of briefings and holos with the High Generals, which was something he’d have never done had he been well. The specks of blood that could be found scattered about Kenobi’s tent added to the Commander’s suspicions. It seriously concerned Sawbones and Kix, but Cody and Rex managed to keep them off the General’s case, their excuses becoming more and more ridiculous every time they came up with them. 

Both men spend their rec time scouring the Holonet for any information it could provide on the General’s illness. Articles and old myths were bookmarked away to read later when they found the time, and the two clones sent each other any information they could find regarding the condition. Cody was dozing off in a chair on The Negotiator when his datapad pinged loudly. ‘Urgent,’ the message read. The commander scrambled to situate himself properly so that he could read what Rex had sent him. 

The file couldn’t be more than a page long. It seemed to be a photo of a piece of flimsi, the words handwritten in basic. It was yellowing around the edges and the corners were rounded, a few crinkles too large to be completely smoothed out, but it was clear enough to read.

“The coughing almost took her today. A fit like no other struck her late in the afternoon, I fear that it will quicken the rate at which the illness is spreading. I am quite worried about the state of my little girl, for she is so fragile. She has greatly missed seeing the groundskeeper, and I suspect she might be in love with him. I also suspect it to be the root of her condition. No matter, he is an honorable man and while not wealthy, a hard worker with a good family. The flowers have become so infested in her that the doctor says they will be visible under her skin by tomorrow. At that point, he estimates she has but days to live and has explained that she will choke to death if she does not poison herself. This is a strange phenomenon for all of us, a condition that has never been seen before. Perhaps I will permit her to see the groundskeeper tomorrow, it may lift her spirits.”

There was a break in the text and Cody took a moment to sip from his caff. He scrolled down and set his mug down as he turned back to the journal. 

“Wonderous news! The groundskeeper seems to have done so well for my darling that all the flowers have been expelled from her body. The doctor says that she is healed. My daughter insists that it was because the groundskeeper gave her a gift and if that is why she is now better, praise be! There will be a feast tonight in celebration of her recovery. I have already begun helping the groundskeeper organize courting events and a proposal. Their wedding will be a momentous occasion in three months’ time.”

Cody’s eyes went wide and he shot up out of his chair. He walked swiftly out of the lounge and into the hallway before a shiny stopped him.

“Commander, where are you going?”

Cody paused in his quick steps. “I don’t know trooper,” he chuckled awkwardly. “Guess I just wanted to stretch my legs.”

The shiny nodded and walked away. Cody dialed Rex on his commlink, and the blond immediately answered. His brows were drawn together, pinching his features into a worried expression. 

“I think that’s our best bet. It’s old and everything but these people actually existed according to Stewjoni history.”

“And the General is Stewjoni. Kark, Rex. Do we confront him?”

“You know that he’ll let it fester if we don’t. It’ll kill him, Cody. You know that.”

The Commander ran a hand over his face, trying to relieve some of the built-up tension behind his eye sockets. 

“We’ll talk to him when we dock at Coruscant again,” Rex continued. 

“Who do you think it is? That code he goes by doesn’t allow attachments, right?”

“Maker, you’re right. He’ll never go to a healer alone, he’s beating himself up about this already. Yeah. Yeah, let’s corner him when we land.”

The journey back to Coruscant took three additional days and many more holo calls between Rex and Cody. By the time they landed, they had made a plan of action on how to confront the General. 

Cody called Obi-Wan a day after they landed and asked to speak to him regarding the debriefing and report he would be giving to the council. The two of them met at an old cantina on the lower levels with somewhat secluded booths. The Commander called Rex in as well, making an excuse of needing to talk to him in person. The blond walked in a few moments later and joined the two at the table.

“General, Commander,” he greeted. Obi-Wan and Cody smiled in response as Rex slid in on the other side of Obi-Wan in the circular booth. 

“Permission to speak freely, sirs?”

“Of course, Rex. No need to ask,” the General said.

“Why are you hiding your illness? I hope you know that it will kill you,” Rex said quietly.

The General froze, his glass in hand.

“How do you know?” He deadpanned.

“General, you’ve been unwell for quite some time now, you can’t expect us not to look into it. We just want to help.”

“I can’t—this isn’t—” he paused and took a breath. “It’s not something that can be healed. I supposed The Dying Bloom to be a well-kept Stewjoni secret, but no longer.”

“Sir, maybe this person does love you back. Have you considered that?”

“I can’t be in love, Cody. It’s against the code. This just has to be a fluke. I’ll not be concerning anyone else about my condition, and I expect the two of you to keep quiet about it. If it takes me, so be it.”

Obi-Wan tried to stand up and leave the restaurant, stepping around Rex, when a few quiet words from Cody stopped him.

“It’s Skywalker, isn’t it?”

The redhead swallowed, his face turning red. “Of course not. Like I said, a fluke.” He continued on his way out before Rex grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t. Don’t let this kill you, General. Let us be here.”

Obi-Wan nodded slightly, his face becoming more and more flushed. The tendons on his neck were flexed and his breath was coming in short bursts. He sputtered out a few coughs, tears leaking from his eyes. The two clones watched in horror as he wiped his mouth with a napkin that came away bloody.

“Men,” he said, weakly nodding.

Rex and Cody scrambled up from their seats, Cody emboldened enough to take the General into his arms. 

“Sir, you’re going to a healer. We’ll take you to the temple ourselves if you’d like.” 

“Yes, Rex, I think that would be wise,” Obi-Wan said quietly. 

The three men hailed a taxi-speeder and quickly arrived at the doors to the temple. The Jedi stopped them in front of his quarters, saying that he had some things to retrieve but that the clones were welcome inside. Rex and Cody settled on the modest sofa in the common area while Obi-Wan disappeared behind a door. After it shut, the two clones heard some shuffling around in the room adjacent to Obi-Wan’s and then a muffled voice. 

“Padme, I’ve got to go, Obi-Wan is back.” A slight pause. “Yes, I’ll see you in a few minutes, I promise. I love you.”

The brunet strolled out of the room, a small smile on his face. 

“What are you two doing here? Not that you’re not welcome,” Anakin said.

“Just discussing some strategies with the General,” Cody said a little too quickly. Anakin raised an eyebrow but pulled on his cloak anyway.

“Well I have somewhere to be, but drinks sometime soon, yea?”

The two clones nodded and sat back against the couch. As soon as Anakin crossed the threshold, a series of violent coughs came from Obi-Wan’s room. Rex and Cody looked at each other for a moment before hurrying to the door.

“General, are you alright?” Rex asked while knocking on the door. Cody punched in the code and called out to Obi-Wan.

“We’re coming in sir!”

The two men barged into the room to find the Jedi laying on his side next to a shelf, eyes glazed over and blood running from his mouth. Cody hoisted him up onto his shoulders and practically ran to The Halls of Healing, Rex trailing close behind him. The three of them received a few odd looks from the Jedi scattered about the hallways, but Rex and Cody couldn’t have cared less. At last, the men reached the Halls of Healing and handed the General over to the Jedi healers. They sat back on the couches in the front room and sighed long and good before sitting back; tense and waiting for answers. 

Vokara Che was truly stumped by Obi-Wan’s condition. He was in the Halls of Healing often enough for them to be acquainted but she truly had never seen anything like this. Flowers growing in the lungs? Unheard of. A force illness, if she had to guess. She sat in the Archives, botany books, and the odd Stewjon biology anthology scattered around her work area. The Twi’lek was muttering to herself when a soft voice startled her.

“Are you looking for The Dying Bloom? I noticed you have some books that might be related to it.”

“I am, in fact. Do you happen to know anything about it?” She asked the young initiate. 

“Lots! Every Stewjon youngling is warned about it. It’s kinda like the flowers grow in your lungs when you fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. My ma and pa knew people who died from it. Sometimes they let the flowers grow and sometimes they went to a doctor and they didn’t come back. Those times were always really sad. But other times the two people fall in love! And the flowers are gone. I know that my aunt had surgery to take out the flowers but she didn’t remember the boy she fell in love with. But it might have been better for her, he wasn’t a very nice man.”

The casual nature in which the young girl said the words were truly astonishing; as if it was common knowledge that people could be killed by plants growing inside them. 

“Thank you for your insight, young one. I must be off to the Halls again.”

Che hurried off in the direction of her office, making reminders on her personal holopad to comm other Stewjon Jedi and other officials she knew of. 

After several conversations with colleagues and friends, she decided that she needed to have a very, very painful conversation with Obi-Wan. He was awake when she entered the room, sitting against the pillows on the medsleeper, staring through the window to his right. 

“Master Kenobi, I’ve done a bit of research on your condition and I will say, it’s nothing I’ve seen before. You have several options to choose from, as I’m sure you know. Do you have any questions before we proceed?”

“How long, Master Che?”

The Twi’lek raised a brow.

“How long do I have?”

“By my estimate, if the flowers keep growing at the same rate, you have a little over three weeks before it chokes you.”

Che quickly examined his throat and chest.

“In fact, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about. Regardless of your decision, we will set you up with an attorney to help organize your final wishes and the distribution of any belongings. If you so choose, there will also be an end of life counselor available for you. Is there anything else you might need?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “The lawyer is all I can think of at the moment.”

“In that case, I believe that it will be in your best interest to discuss your options. There is the surgery that we could go on with. Though it’s never been done at the temple, several Stewjon healers are willing to spearhead the operation and recovery. You also have the option of letting the disease take its course. As I said, by my estimate it will be three weeks until you naturally succumb to it, and we would make sure that you are as comfortable as possible. You would, however, have to stay here so that we would be able to monitor you. In that same vein, we do offer physician-assisted euthanasia. The serum is field-friendly, and you would be able to travel to a place of your choosing rather than staying here.”

The man lifted his head slightly and looked at her with a sad gleam in his eye. “I know, Vokara. I know the options. I’m just wondering if it would be too selfish to ask people to accompany me.”

“So you’ve made your decision?”

“Yes, I think it’s the only option for me. I’d like to travel somewhere and go on my own terms.”

The Twi’lek healer nodded sadly.

“Do you have any ideas as to where you’d like to go?”

“I’ve heard that Vyndal is quite beautiful.”

Master Che put a hand on his shoulder. 

“I’ll organize everything. You rest now, Obi-Wan.” Before she slipped out the door, she added: “And no, asking people to go with you isn’t selfish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can come yell at me on [tumblr](https://master-obi-wan-kenboneme.tumblr.com)
> 
> kudos and comments re my lifeblood, please leave some love if you feel the urge!


	3. The Repenting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure why this is formatted so weirdly... but enjoy!

The first thing that Obi-Wan noticed when he woke up was the breathing tube stuck down his throat. After his eyes adjusted to the bright fluorescent light in the Halls of Healing, he was able to make out Anakin sitting on an armchair next to the bed. His eyes widened and his throat began spasming around the tube. The younger man looked up from his datapad and to Obi-Wan. Panic filled his blue eyes as he yelled for Healer Che. He rested a hand on the red-head’s shoulder to try and stop him from squirming off the bed. 

Obi-Wan hadn’t realized that he and Anakin were on speaking terms again, what with the shouting match that ensued after the Hardeen mission. He supposed that any former padawan might be at least a little worried to find out that their master was in the Halls of Healing. 

Healer Che and what looked to be a padawan walked in quickly, shutting the door behind them and ushering Anakin out of his chair. The two healers took their time examining him, and removing the breathing tube was just on the wrong side of uncomfortable. He was still sputtering when the two healers replaced the old bacta gel-sheets on his chest with new ones.

“I’ll give you a few moments to speak to Knight Skywalker, but then I must explain some things about your condition to you, Master Kenobi.” He looked toward his former padawan who seemed to be brooding at the window. 

The redhead did his best to bow his head as they left. His voice was still rough and raspy when he finally addressed Anakin after a few moments of silence.

“May I assume you’ve forgiven me for lying to you and faking my death?”

Anakin huffed. “Really, Obi-Wan? You’re laying in The Halls of Healing and can hardly breathe on your own and you want to talk about that? How karking typical.” The young man rolled his eyes as he turned to his master. “You just didn’t think to tell me that you were on death’s doorstep?”

“I didn’t know if you’d want to see me!”

“You’re dying!” Anakin paused for a moment. Some sort of lesson from Padme or Ahsoka must have come through to him when he said, “I’m sorry. I’m making this about me.”

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. “How much do you know of what’s ailing me?”

“Not much,” Anakin admitted. “They told me it’s about your lungs and that’s about it.”

The older man sighed and nodded, gesturing for Anakin to sit back down. “This is going to take quite a bit of explaining.”

Once Anakin was settled in the seat, Obi-Wan began.

“It is a sacred thing to the Stewjoni culture, this illness. It is rare, but there are times when someone falls in love with a person who doesn’t love them back, resulting in flowers or flowering plants growing in their lungs. The process slowly and gradually chokes the person to death from the inside out. The condition is only cured by two things: surgery or a tremendous act of love by the target of the person’s affections.” Obi-Wan had to pause for a moment to catch his breath. 

“Often, the surgery renders the affected one with no knowledge or feelings pertaining to the one with whom they used to be in love. It’s quite tragic, and many choose to either confess their love or make a plan with their physician to pass on their own terms if there is no possible way their love could be returned.”

There was a silence for a few moments as Anakin processed the information he had been given. 

“And you?” He asked quietly. The question was almost too soft for Obi-Wan to hear.

“What about me?”

“You’re getting the surgery, right? Like I know that Jedi can’t have attachments and all, but the surgery would solve that! You’d be okay, and you’d be able to keep going on missions and you could stay with Ahsoka and I in case anything ever happened.”

The older man didn’t respond. He averted his eyes, turning his gaze toward a thread on the blanket he began to pick at. 

“Obi-Wan?”

“I,” he began. Tears welled up in his eyes. “I have not elected to undergo the procedure. There are many more complications than those I listed and I simply—” He was interrupted by Anakin grabbing one of his hands and sandwiching it between his own. 

“Fuck, Obi-Wan. You’re just giving up?” He asked, a hint of anger behind his words. “Not even going to fight it, you’re just letting it happen? Sith Hells, I don’t want you to choke on flowers but I don’t want you to die just because you’re afraid!”

“Anakin, you are being irrational. This is the most dignified way I can die at this point. I do not want to wake up one day after I have the surgery and have the urge to off myself again! I don’t want to suffocate alone on a patrol, you stumbling upon my bloodied corpse when you set out the next morning!”

“But you’re not even trying! You’ve given up before you even tried.” He rose out of the chair and sank to his knees. Anain brought the palm of Obi-Wan’s hand to his cheek. The older man felt the tears dried on his skin. “I can’t lose you master, I can’t lose you like I’ve lost everyone else. My mother is already gone, I don’t think I would survive it if you chose this.” The tears ran anew down his face. His sobs were loud and drowned out the strained cough the Obi-Wan let out. 

“Please, Master! Please could you just try?”

At his former padawan’s desperate words, tears began to make their way over his face, collecting in his beard. 

“Anakin, I truly am sorry. There is no way around my death, it’s just going to come a bit sooner than you’d like.”

After a few moments, the younger man’s face morphed into a sad smile.

“It was always going to be too soon.” In an odd and unprompted display of maturity, Anakin rose from where he was on the floor and bowed to Obi-Wan.

“I will respect each decision you make, Master. Please get some rest.”

Obi-Wan nodded, dazed. It was not a moment after Anakin left that Vokara entered the room again.

“Kenobi, your condition seems to have worsened dramatically over the course of a few days. Even these most recent hours have seen your detriment. So, I must ask, is it Skywalker?”

Obi-Wan nodded again.

“You know it’s him and yet you allow him to be around you? You allow yourself near him?”

“Vokara, I am dying. It is painful,” he coughed, “and slow. I do not often allow myself things but if I may be able to see him until my dying breath, I will be happy.”

“Oh, Obi-Wan. Go to sleep, please.”

Not long after he had managed to fall back to sleep was he summoned to the council. 

“This is obviously a sign of attachment!”

“You can hardly believe that Master Kenobi developed this condition willingly, can you?”

“Whether or not it’s his fault is an issue for later, Master Fisto. The issue at hand is whether or not he should be disciplined for this.”

“Punished, Master Kenobi must not be. Know, we do, how often he meditates. Know, we do, how he fights against attachment. Know, we do, how great of a Jedi is Master Kenobi.”

“So we should make exceptions based on his past performance?”

“We should make exceptions based on biology and uncontrollable conditions, Master Mundi!”

“There is a difference between a biological mishap and something that can be prevented, Windu.”

Obi-Wan was growing tired of the bickering between the other members of the council.

“If I may?” He rasped. The other masters nodded, or put a hand over their face in frustration.

“This disease is not something I voluntarily developed. I have been meditating against this attachment for years, and it seems that it has recently manifested in a physical form. I do not yet know what Healer Che has told you, but my condition is deadly and curable through dangerous surgery that would likely render me completely unfeeling.” The redhead took a breath, winded from his small speech. Vokara stepped up beside his chair and spoke.

“It is also curable through confession and returned affection. Obi-Wan will not be pursuing that path. He has made his decision on what to do and it will not be changed. In two weeks he will depart from Coruscant with a few of his men to Vyndal, where he will be administered an up-to-standard euthanasia medication.”

The room fell silent as the members of the council realized what Che meant.

“May I have a few moments to speak with Kenobi alone?” Mace asked. Several council members left behind Vokara, and Yoda stayed behind with Windu.

“Fault you for your attachment, we do not. Regretful, we are, that we cannot offer you another solution.”

“I might have told you to tell Anakin if he wasn’t married,” Mace said quietly, a hand on his shoulder. Obi-Wan sputtered.

“Masters I have expressed how much I regret my condition. I will do whatever the council deems acceptable as punishment for this.”

“We cannot control who we love, Obi-Wan. I only wish that it was less physically dangerous."

"Mace, you know that there are no other options." 

"And if Anakin knew, it would be dangerous for everyone.” 

Obi-Wan nodded gravely.

“And I do not want him to try and force himself to love me. Force I am an awful master.”

“Lucky, young Skywalker was to have you as a master," Yoda interjected. "Treated him, you did, how Master Jinn should have treated you.”

Obi-Wan nodded solemnly and turned to cough into his hand.

“I will be in my quarters if you should need me. May the force be with you, Masters.”

“And with you, Master Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan, with as much dignity as he could muster, strode from the large, brightly lit council room. The man paused every few moments to catch his breath against the wall; sweat beading at his temples and at his graying hairline. Force, he was getting old.

The redhead turned down the corridor towards his quarters. He didn't think he was going to be able to stand another moment of his last weeks in those Sith-forsaken Halls of Healing. The strong smells, bright lights, too-white bed coverings, and feelings of grief in the force always gave him a headache. A tickle in his throat forced him to stumble through the twisting corridors of the Jedi temple even faster. There was no way he could hide this disease if he was sputtering up flowers in the well-traversed hallway he was in.

It was not long after Obi-Wan entered his room that he fell gracelessly onto his bed, coughing up Tatooine flowers and blood for what seemed like an eternity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come scream at me on my [tumblr!](https://master-obi-wan-kenboneme.tumblr.com)
> 
> (asks are always open, also please consider leaving kudos or a comment! it makes my day)

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on [tumblr](https://master-obi-wan-kenboneme.tumblr.com)  
> my asks are always open


End file.
